Chapter 9. A Philosopher Asks Buddha - Osho

Osho - No Water No Moon

Chapter 9. A Philosopher Asks Buddha

A philosopher came to Buddha one day and asked, "Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me the truth?"

The Buddha kept silence.

The philosopher bowed and thanked Buddha, saying, "With your loving kindness I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path."

After the philosopher had gone Ananda asked Buddha what the philosopher had attained.

The Buddha replied, "A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip."

A philosopher came to Buddha one day and asked, "Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me the truth?"

It is very rarely that a philosopher comes to a buddha. It is almost impossible. But whenever it happens, it can become a revolution, it can become a transformation in the philosopher. Why is it so impossible that a philosopher comes to Buddha? Because philosophy and religion are very antagonistic; their approach is totally opposite, diametrically opposite.

Philosophy believes in thinking and religion believes in trust. A thinker doubts easily, but cannot trust so easily. A doubting mind is needed to be a philosopher, a very skeptical mind. To be religious deep trust is needed - not at all skeptical, not doubting at all. The philosopher lives through logic; the religious man lives through love, and there is no way to help love and logic meet. There is no way; they never meet, their paths never cross each other. They may run parallel - just like the railway tracks - but they never meet. They may be very close, but they always run parallel. Even if you think they meet somewhere, it is an illusion.

Just stand at a railway track and see the rails running parallel: on the faraway distant horizon you will think they are meeting. They are not meeting, that is an illusion. Go to that point and you will find they are still parallel. Two parallel lines can never meet. Heart and head are parallel lines, they never meet. You can take a jump, from one line you can go to the other - that's possible. You can take a jump from the head to the heart, but there is no continuity; it is a jump.

If you believe in the head too much - that means believing in doubting - this jump becomes impossible. There have been great philosophers; they thought and thought, and they pondered and contemplated, and they have created big systems, miracles of words, but they are not nearer to the truth than any ignorant man. Rather, on the contrary, the ignorant man may be nearer, because at least he is humble in his ignorance, at least he is not egoist, at least he can listen to the other. At least if a buddha comes to the town the ignorant man can go to him, because he knows he does not know - that much humility is there. A philosopher cannot go because he already knows. That is the problem: without knowing anything, he thinks he knows.

This is happening with me every day. If a philosopher comes, a psychiatrist comes - a man who has studied psychology, philosophy and religion in some university - it is difficult, almost impossible to have any communion with him. You can discuss, but you cannot meet - you will move parallel. You may appear close because you use the same words, but that is just appearance.

Why is it so difficult for logic to love? - because love needs a very courageous act, and that courageous act is to move into the unknown. Logic is always a coward, it never moves into the unknown. Logic says, "First I must know. When the territory is well known, then I will move."

Logic has no adventure in it. Love is absolutely adventurous; sometimes it even looks foolish. To the logical mind it always looks foolish: "What are you doing, moving into the unknown without knowing where you are going? What you are doing? And leaving the territory that was known, secure, safe, becoming unnecessarily homeless. Don't lose that which you have got, first be sure of that which you are going to gain." This is the problem. Logic says, "First know the further step well; only then leave the step you are standing on." Then you can never leave this step, because there is no way of knowing the further step unless you reach to it. Logic is...

I have heard: It once happened, Mulla Nasruddin wanted to learn swimming. He went to a teacher and the teacher said, "Come along with me, I am going to the river. It is not difficult, you will learn.

It is simple, even children can learn."

But accidentally, when Nasruddin came near the bank, he slipped. It was muddy and he fell down, and he became very afraid. He ran to the farthest point of the bank, under a tree. The teacher followed. He said, "Why are you escaping? Where are you going?"

Nasruddin said, "Listen: first teach me swimming, only then will I come closer. This is dangerous!

If something goes wrong, who will be responsible? So I will come near the river only when I have learned swimming."

But is there any way to learn swimming without going to the river? So, Mulla Nasruddin remained without even learning to swim.

It is too dangerous, the step is too foolish. A man, a learned man, a man of logic, cannot take that step. Logic becomes a grave. You become more and more confined because life is danger. There is no way to avoid it, it is always moving into the unknown. The river is always going towards the sea.

This is how life progresses: it always leaves the known, moves into the unknown. That's the way life is. Nothing can be done about it. If you try to do something - then the Ganges should be flowing towards the source, the Gangotri, because that is the known thing; not towards Ganga Sagar, not towards the ocean.

In African mythology there is a bird: the name is woofle-woofle - African. The bird is one of the most mythical of all the mythologies of the world. That bird has only one peculiarity: it is not interested in where it is going, it is only interested in where it is coming from - so it goes backwards. It never reaches anywhere because it is always interested in where it is coming from. It is interested in the past. That is as if you are old and going towards the womb. This is impossible - but this is how human mind functions.

With logic you move towards the source; with love you move towards the ultimate flowering - the dimensions are different. Logic asks, "Who created the world?" It is interested in the creator, in the past, the original source - the Gangotri, from where the Ganges flows. Love never asks who created the world. It is already there, so why bother? Whosoever created ABC makes no difference. How is it going to affect you, whoever created the world? Whether it was a Hindu god, a Brahma, or a Christian trinity - what difference does it make?

Love is interested in what the ultimate flowering is going to be. Love is interested in buddhahood.

Love is interested what is going to happen to me, to my seed, how it will flower. Note the difference:

logic is always interested in the known, in the past, the path that you have already traveled; love is always interested in the unknown, in the ultimate flowering, the path that you have not traveled - not only not traveled, the path that you have not even imagined, not even dreamed of.

That's why a philosopher rarely comes to a buddha. They are moving in diametrically opposite directions; a philosopher going to the past, a buddha moving to the future. Their departing point may be the same, but there is no meeting point. But when a philosopher comes to a buddha...

rarely it happens, but whenever it happens there is immediate transformation.

Why? Because if a philosopher comes to a buddha, it means deep down he has understood the failure of philosophy. Otherwise, why would he have come? Deep down he has felt the failure of logic. He has made every effort to know truth through it: arguing about and about, for, in favor, against. He has been arguing and arguing and has now come to the point where he knows the whole thing is futile; nothing can be known through it. This failure gives him the deepest humility possible in the world. Even an ignorant man is not so humble, because he is not such a deep failure.

He has not come to know the suffering of failure. He has not been thrown from the peak to the valley.

This philosopher was thinking that he was at the peak. Suddenly he became aware that he had been standing in the valley and dreaming about the peak. There had never been a peak: he had not moved a single inch. The truth had remained as unknown as ever. His whole life had been a waste. When somebody comes to feel this, suddenly the ego disappears, one becomes humble.

And unless you are humble, you cannot come to a buddha. Only humbleness, deep humility, can bring you to a buddha - now you are ready to learn, because you don't know anything.

So there are two types of ignorance: ordinary ignorance is when a man is ignorant but is not aware that he is ignorant. When a philosopher becomes aware that he is ignorant - this is the second type of ignorance, very deep: he has come to realize that he is ignorant, he is fully aware that he is ignorant - when ignorance is aware of itself, that becomes the first step of wisdom.

So the first thing to understand:

A philosopher came to buddha one day, and asked...

There were many philosophers in Buddha's time. Really, there has never been such a flowering of intellect as happened at that time - not only in India, all over the world. Buddha was there; Mahavira was there; Prabuddha Katyayan, a great logician; Ajit Keshakambal, a great philosopher; Makkhali Goshal, a rare intellect; Sanjay Vilethiputta and many others were there in Bihar. Now their names are not well known because they never created any following. Exactly at the same time in Greece there was Socrates, Plato, Aristotle - the three who created the whole Western mind. Exactly at the same time in China there was Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Mencius. It seems at that peak, all over the world, mind was at its Everest.

There are only three cultures: one is Chinese, another is Indian, and the other is Greek. Only three cultures exist, all the others are just byproducts. The whole West originated with the Greek mind in Athens. The whole Chinese civilization, a totally different type of civilization, arose out of Confucius' and Lao Tzu's confrontation, and all that is beautiful in India came out of Buddha, Mahavira. And all these people existed at a single moment of history.

Historians say that history moves like a wheel: there are moments when intelligence is at its peak, there are moments when intelligence goes down. These were the times when intelligence was at its peak. Many were the philosophers, particularly in India; the whole country was philosophic. People moved from this corner to that corner seeking for truth - millions of seekers!

Only when there are millions of seekers, then a few can become enlightened, because it is a pyramid-like thing. A pyramid is very broad at the base, and then, by and by, comes the peak.

A Buddha exists only when at the broad base millions of people are seeking truth; otherwise he cannot exist. There is no possibility, he cannot stand. Where will he stand? He needs millions, millions of seekers; they become the base.

And in those days when systems were being created everywhere, and such complicated, complex systems that there has never been anything to compare with them.... Historians of philosophy and religion say that at that time India knew all that has been known in philosophy - every shade and nuance of thought, every approach. India has looked at all the paths and possibilities, and every possibility has been finished. Now, since that time, there has been nothing new in philosophy; and if you think there is something new, it only means that you are not well acquainted with India. There has been nothing new since Buddha, because at that time everything was searched, almost every possibility finished.

And if you think... In the West many people come to realize something and think that they are giving something new. It looks new because they are unacquainted with it, they don't know it. And now the whole of this treasure is hidden in Pali, in Prakrit and in Sanskrit, languages not spoken, not used.

But every nuance of thought...

For example, when Sigmund Freud said for the first time that, "I suspect that the conscious mind is not the whole mind. Deep down below the conscious there is a subconscious layer. And even beyond that, I suspect an unconscious layer," it was thought that it was a very revolutionary discovery.

But in Buddha's time this was known; not only this - Buddha talks about still further layers. He talks about seven layers of the mind. These three are there, as Freud says - but four more... and if he is right up to the third, there is every possibility he will be right beyond them, because he is on the right track.

Then Jung suggested that beyond the unconscious there seems to be a collective unconscious - that is the fourth layer of Buddha. Now the whole of psychology has come to this fourth layer. All four are suggested by Buddha - but three more are there; sooner or later we will discover them.

Since then there has never been such appreciation for thinking, logic. And the hair-splitting went to its very extreme. Buddha talks about seven layers of mind and Prabuddha Katyayan talks about seven hundred layers of mind. Incomprehensible, but very logical... and the possibility is that the mind can be divided into seven hundred layers. Nothing is impossible.

At that time a philosopher came to Buddha. First try to understand the situation of Buddha; Buddha's situation is as antimetaphysical as possible, he is not a philosopher. Really, you cannot find a man who is more anti-philosophical than Buddha, because he says all philosophical questions are nonsense. This is the standpoint now in the West - Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein. The latest discovery in the West is Wittgenstein, and this is the standpoint of Wittgenstein: that all philosophical questions, answers, are nonsense. Still, if you ask a question, a philosophical question, Bertrand Russell answers it yes or no. Buddha never answered, because if it is nonsense, why answer?

Buddha would keep silent.

So it was the routine, whenever Buddha would come to any town, that Buddha's bhikkhus would go into the town and inform people: "Please don't ask these eleven questions." They had a list of eleven questions; in those eleven questions all metaphysics is finished, you cannot ask anything beyond those eleven. They are the whole expanse of all philosophical inquiry.

So beforehand, before Buddha would reach a town, the bhikkhus would go and spread the news:

"Please don't ask about these eleven questions, because he is not going to answer. If you have something beyond these eleven you can come, you are invited." But there is nothing beyond those eleven, so what to do?

This man was not a philosopher, he was not skeptical, he didn't believe in doubt. And he disbelieved in doubt so much that he never talked about trust. This has to be understood, because trust is needed only if you are in doubt. If you are not in doubt, why talk about trust? All talk about faith means doubt has entered. He never said, "Believe!" because, he said, there is no question of believing or not believing; one has to be. It is not an intellectual question - because faith and doubt both remain intellectual. From where do you doubt? From the mind. From where will you believe?

From the mind.

So your belief will also be from the same root. It will already be poisoned. Who will believe? And who will doubt? You will remain the same, and you are the problem. So Buddha hits at the root; he says, "No need to trust, no need to doubt. You simply come to me and be. Don't move to this extreme, don't move to the other. Don't take any standpoint, simply be in the middle." That's why his path is known as the middle path - majjhim nikaya: never move to the extreme. This is one of the most original discoveries about human mind and its functioning, because the mind always likes to move to the opposite.

You love a person. Through love you magnify the person, he becomes a god. Then love disappears; immediately you start hating. You then do exactly the opposite - nobody stops in the middle. Then the person shrinks under your hate, becomes a devil. Is there any way to stand between God and the Devil and not move to the opposite? Mind feels very easy moving from one thing to the contrary.

There is no problem, you have been doing that: you doubt a person, then you can believe; you believe a person, then you can doubt.

Buddha says to stop in the middle, because in the middle there is no mind; mind exists only on the extremes. Love? Mind is there. Hate? Mind is there. For? Mind is there. Against? Mind is there.

In the middle, mind cannot exist. In the middle there is no possibility of any thought, because either the thought will be of doubt or of trust, of love or hate, enmity or friendship. And you know well that in every friend the enemy is hidden, in every enemy the friend is possible.

One of the most cunning minds of the world, Machiavelli, has written in his book The Prince, "Don't say anything, even to a friend, which you would not like to say to an enemy, because a friend is a potential enemy any day. And don't say anything against an enemy which you would not like to say against a friend, because then you will be in trouble any day. If the enemy becomes the friend, then you will be embarrassed."

And this is a suggestion from one politician to princes, to other politicians. So politicians remain alert; the more they become seasoned, the less you can find in their words, statements, who they are talking against, who they are talking for. Their words become more and more elusive, so it is possible that if the friend turns into an enemy, they will not be in trouble. If an enemy turns into a friend... And politics changes every day; it is just like the climate, and you never know....

I have heard: Two politicians were talking about a third fellow traveler. One said, "This man is so dishonest, so cunning, so crude, that I have never known anybody like that. This is the most dishonest man here." And he said, "And I feel that you don't know him as well as I know him."

The other man said, "No, you are wrong. I also know him very well."

The first said, "How can you know him very well? I am his best friend!"

Only friends know each other very well. And he is saying that he is the most dishonest, the greatest rascal around. And he says, "How can you know him very well? I am his best friend."

Friendship and enmity are the two faces of one mind. Stop in the middle! And Buddha stopped in the middle... and he helped many people to stop in the middle. It is just like walking on a tightrope.

Have you observed a tightrope walker, what he is doing? One of the deepest truths of life is revealed there. Whenever he feels that he will fall to the left, he immediately moves to the right. It may not be so visible to you, because you think he is moving to the right, leaning to the right. But whenever he leans to the right, he knows that he was going to fall towards the left. Just to balance, when he feels he is going to fall to the right, he immediately leans towards the left; the opposite has to be chosen to get balance.

When you love a person too much in the morning, in the evening you have to hate him, otherwise you will fall down from the rope - it is tightrope walking. If you love a person too much, you have leaned too much to the left; now you will fall. To gain balance you have to lean to the right. Lovers are always fighting; that's just a sort of balancing, nothing else, nothing serious. It is natural - unless you get down off the rope, that's another thing.

That's what Buddha says: he says, "Don't lean to the right, don't lean to the left." Then what will happen? You will fall down from the rope. And that rope is the mind, that rope is the ego; you have to balance it, continuously balance it. So... it looks so paradoxical.

Whenever you hate your beloved, your wife, your friend, really you are trying to get balance so that you can love again. Otherwise, you will fall down from the mind. And without mind there is no love, no hate - at least, the hate that you know, the love that you know; they are not there. A different kind of compassion arises which is beyond the duality, but that arises only when you have lost the rope, lost the effort to balance on the rope. When you are lost, your ego is lost - ego is a subtle balance.

A philosopher came to Buddha one day and asked, "Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me the truth?"

He is asking something impossible; but near a buddha the im-possible becomes possible - and only near a buddha the impossible become possible. There all laws, all ordinary laws, are broken.

What is he asking? He is asking: "Without words and without the wordless, will you tell me the truth?" This has happened many times. It also happened once before with Buddha: another man came, but the man must have been totally different qualitatively, because Buddha behaved differently.

A buddha has no fixed answers. He has no obsession, because he has no-mind. Whenever a person comes before him, he is just like a mirror - he reflects the person. Another man asks the same question - the man came and asked, "Sir, can you tell me something about the truth without using words?"

Buddha said, "Then you will have to ask without using words. You ask, and I will tell. If you can't ask without using words, how do you expect...? So go, train yourself! Be ready to ask it without using words, then come."

But to this philosopher, Buddha didn't reply in that way. And really this man was asking a different question, because this man was different. The question carries the meaning of the person. The question has no meaning in the words. It carries you, your quality. You can ask the same question, but it cannot mean the same. If you are different the question will be different. A word carries meaning from the person. A word in itself is meaningless. You may consult dictionaries, and you may come to know the meaning of the words, but that is not a real, live meaning, it is dead. When a person uses a word he gives it a live meaning, a real meaning. The significance comes from the person.

This man asked... what had he asked? A very subtle question. He said, "Without words, and without the wordless, will you tell me the truth?"

Without words, it is easy - you can remain silent. But without the wordless it becomes impossible, because if you remain silent you are using the wordless. And the man has asked, "Don't use words, don't use no-words, and tell me the truth." Silence won't help, words won't help. Language will not be of much use, and silence also is not of much use. Then what is Buddha going to do?

The Buddha kept silence - but this silence is different.

There are two types of silence. When you keep silence, it is a forced stillness. Words are there within you, noise is there; silence is just on the surface. You look silent; you are not silent. This is one type of silence that you know. There is another type of silence - that on the surface you are also silent, and you can be forced inside also to be silent. If you are in danger - somebody threatens you, that he is going to kill you - then you will become silent inside also, but this silence will be wordless.

The first silence, when on the surface you were silent - inside there were words and chattering - was silence with word. This second silence will be wordless silence, there will be no noise within - because in a dangerous situation, in a shock, the noise has stopped.

But still it is not a buddha's silence. A buddha's silence is a third type of silence which you have not known. It is neither with noise nor with no-noise. Buddha is silent; not that he has forced his words to be silent - it is not a stillness with effort - he is simply silent because there is nothing else to do. This silence is positive, not the opposite of words. This silence is in the middle, not on the other extreme. One extreme is words, the other extreme is wordlessness. This silence is just in the middle: there is no word, there is no wordlessness. He is simply silent - not against noise.

If you are against noise, then your silence can be disturbed very easily. You know many people who are praying or meditating, and a child starts laughing and giggling and they are disturbed. There is some noise on the street, traffic noise; there is somebody honking the horn, and they are disturbed.

A silence that is forced can be disturbed very easily. Only a silence that is forced can be disturbed.

But if you are really silent in the sense of a Buddha, a child starts giggling, a bird starts singing, somebody honks the horn - the noise will be there, but you are not disturbed. The noise will come and pass, just as in an empty room: the noise comes from this door and goes from that door. There is nobody inside who can be disturbed.

But if you have a forced silence, then you are there, the ego is there - just riding on the mind, just forcing the mind, just making every effort to be silent. This is a constrained, strained silence. It can be disturbed very easily, even a child can disturb it. Then what type of buddhahood is this? This is no buddhahood, this is just a false coin.

Remember, while meditating this will be your deepest problem. Ordinarily you are chattering. You can move to the opposite end easily; you can force the chattering not to be there. It is just like a child playing, running around, doing many things uselessly, and you threaten him that he will be punished: "Sit in that corner!" And you are strong and the child is helpless, so he sits in the corner, looks very buddhalike - but bubbling, exploding within, just getting ready to get any chance when he can start running again.

Look at a child when you have forced him to be silent, that will be the second type of silence. He is not moving; if you force him too much he will not even move the body, he will close his eyes - but what is he doing? Forcing himself, fighting with himself; constant effort. He is pushing himself down, sitting on his own chest. He will not be able to breathe because he is afraid - because if you breathe then movement starts.

That's why nobody breathes, really. You have lost the dimension of breathing from your childhood when you were forced. Everybody breathes just from the upper lungs. The breath cannot go deep because you are afraid. From your very childhood, you have been forced....

Look at a child sleeping. See what is happening: his chest remains unmoving, his belly moves. His breath goes to the deepest, to the very bottom. His belly moves, his chest is unmoving. This child is still not part of society, he is not a citizen, he is still wild. You will have to train him, then you will have to use force.

And whenever you say to a child, "Don't do this!" how can he manipulate himself? The first thing is not to breathe. Whenever you suppress something you start shallow breathing. Suppression and shallow breathing are synonymous. Whenever you throw your suppression, you express; breathing goes deep. Only while you are fast asleep the breathing goes deep, because in sleep you cannot suppress, the ego has fallen unconscious. So in sleep you breathe from the belly; that is the right sort of breathing. Or while making love your breathing goes deep; it has to go, because all suppressions are around sex, and if you are making love, if you allow sex, then all suppressions are thrown away.

Then the breath goes deep, it goes to the belly; you again breathe like a child, you again become wild, you again become natural, you again become spontaneous.

Look at a child when you have threatened him - and look at your monks in the monasteries. You have threatened them also. Afraid of hell, in greed for heaven, they are sitting there, suppressed.

Their silence is of the other pole, the other extreme; they are wordless, they have forced the word to disappear, but they are not beyond the two.

Buddha remained silent. Buddha is of the third dimension. He would not say anything - words are not allowed. He would not suppress the word, because the wordlessness was not allowed. He simply remained there, not thinking, not meditating - simply there like a tree.

For five hundred years after Buddha, his statue was not made. For five hundred years there was no picture of Buddha; and whenever Buddha was to be represented, people just drew the bodhi tree. That was beautiful, because he was just like a tree. Can you say this tree is silent? You cannot say that, because this tree is never noisy so how can it be silent? Can you say this tree is meditating? How can it meditate? It has never thought, there has been no thinking, so how can it meditate? Then where is this tree? This tree is in the third dimension where no chattering exists and no non-chattering exists. This tree is in the middle, exactly in the middle.

You may not be a buddha, but this tree is a bodhi tree. And if you can sit under a tree, just like the tree, you will become a buddha. And any tree could become a bodhi tree, all trees are; just buddhas are needed to discover which tree is a bodhi tree. Sit under any tree, and if you are in the middle, the tree becomes the bodhi tree. All trees are, only somebody is needed to reveal the fact, because trees don't believe in advertisement - otherwise, they will reveal.

TheBbuddha kept silence.

The philosopher bowed and thanked Buddha, saying, "With your loving kindness, I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path."

Seems to be miraculous, or absurd, because Buddha has not said anything and he has understood - and I have been saying things and you have not understood. There were many with Buddha also with whom he was talking and talking, and they did not understand - and this man understood without words, without wordlessness. What happened? What type of communication happened in that moment when Buddha kept silent?

No knowledge was transferred, obviously - because you cannot transfer knowledge without words, you cannot transfer knowledge without wordlessness. There are two types of knowledge: one, ordinary knowledge which can be transferred through words. There is another kind of knowledge, occult, which can be transferred through wordlessness - occult, telepathic. You need not say it, but it can be transferred. Both were not allowed.

That philosopher said, "Don't use words and don't use no-words. I am fed up with both. I am fed up with all extreme polarities. I have moved into logic too much - from this to that. I have lived all the possibilities of logic... and enough! You simply give me the truth without word and without wordlessness."

And what happened, what type of transfer? What communion happened in this moment? In a single moment it happened. And the philosopher bowed and thanked Buddha and said, "With your loving kindness, I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path."

When a Buddha is silent, and if you also can be silent, then being is transferred, not knowledge; not what Buddha knows, but what Buddha is. Being is transferred. Suddenly he enters you, if you are silent. And this man who was genuinely asking about the true path, and who was asking not to use words and not to use wordlessness, who was denying all duality, was ready. Buddha kept silent. The philosopher looked at Buddha - the look was there. He was attentive, he gave his total attention. What was happening?

He was not thinking - he had finished that, he had thought enough. That is why I say that whenever a philosopher comes, it is a transformation. He was fed up with it. You are still not fed up with it. You still cling to it, because you have not thought to the very end. You still hope that some day, through thinking, you may come to a conclusion, because you have not gone to the very end. If you go to the very end you will know that thinking never gives any conclusions, it is never conclusive. It only gives you the feeling that soon the door is to open. The door opens, of course, but only opens into another room.

Then there is another door. It also opens, but into another room. You are never out of it; the house seems to be infinite, millions of rooms. From one room you enter another, from another you enter another, and you go on moving and always hoping, "This door will lead me out." It leads only again into a room.

If you have gone to the very end, as this man had gone, then you can listen in silence. He was not waiting for any answer, because he knows answers cannot be given without words, answers cannot be given without wordlessness - all answers will be either this or that.

Buddha kept silent. That man looked at Buddha. In that look the two personalities dissolved. They were not two - in that moment there was one; two bodies, two hearts throbbing, but one being, all the boundaries transcended. Buddha trespassed him, he entered. It is a transfer of being. The man tasted what Buddha is, not what he knows. He does not know much - you can defeat Buddha very easily. You can easily know more, now more knowledge is available; that is not the question. But Buddha has more being.

Gurdjieff used to ask every seeker, whosoever would come to him... the first question Gurdjieff used to ask was whether you are in search of knowledge or of being. "You want to know more, or do you want to be more?" These are basically different dimensions. And if somebody would say, "I want to know more," Gurdjieff would say, "This door is closed. I am not here to impart knowledge to you.

You go... there are many departments, universities, colleges; they are imparting knowledge - you go there. When you are fed up with knowledge, then come and knock. If I am alive, this door is open, but this door is open only for those who are in search of being."

What are you going...? Even if you come to know, how is it going to help? A man can know everything about water, but how is it going to satisfy the thirst? It is so patently foolish! You may know that H2O is the basis of all water, and a man is dying of thirst in a desert and you write the formula on paper that this is the secret of water. He will say, "Okay, this is the secret. But what about my thirst?"

A man is dying without love and you go on feeding him knowledge about love. How is it going to help? There are millions of books about love, but not even a single lover can be satisfied by them.

How is it going to help? A man is dying; he is dying and you talk about immortality. This is not going to feed him. This is not going to create immortality for him.

Being is needed; somebody to impart being, not knowledge. Knowledge is about and about; being is at the center, knowledge is at the periphery. You have come to me... have you come to gather more knowledge? Then you have come to a wrong person; then you are wasting your time. But if you are in search of being, then something is possible.

At that moment this miracle happened, the mystery of Buddha opened. It always opens in silence, just like a flower opens at midnight. Nobody knows: it opens in silence. If somebody is there who can wait patiently, then the flower can impart, share his being. Buddha entered in that moment.

Ananda, who was Buddha's chief disciple, couldn't understand what was happening, because he was after knowledge. He was needed in a way, but he was not the right seeker, and it is because of Ananda that we know all that Buddha said. He collected - he was the tape recorder. But now tape recorders are available, so I don't need any Ananda. And that was not good - a thing that can be done by a mechanical device should not be done by a man, because doing it he becomes mechanical.

Ananda could repeat every single word Buddha used in forty years. His was one of these rare memories. When Buddha died he repeated the whole forty years - thousands of pages, and he recorded them. He was needed, but he was not the real seeker - a recorder, and a good recorder, but for himself he was missing something.

If you are recording what I am saying, you are missing something. Don't be a memory before me, don't record - understand! Because when you are in the effort to record, you misunderstand. And there are many people who think, "First record it, then we will try and understand it."

I have seen many people who take notes. Here I am talking and they are taking notes. Here they are missing me, and at home they will look at their notes and then try to understand them. There are people who will go to the Himalayas, and then what they will do there? They will just hunt for good scenery and pictures and take photographs. There the Himalayas don't exist, only the camera. Then back home they will look at the album and enjoy them. You could have bought pictures, there was no need to go to the Himalayas. Professional photographers are doing that - there is no need for you to go - and you cannot do better than the professionals, your photographs will be amateurish.

But then, sitting at home, you will enjoy them. You missed the Himalayas and you have brought only secondhand photographs.

Try to understand what I am saying. Try to be! Don't record it, there is no need. Just forget what I said. If you have really understood, it will follow you like a fragrance. No need to carry it in the memory, it will be part of your being.

In that moment, the philosopher understood. He bowed down in deep gratitude. And what did he say? The words are very significant. He said: "With your loving kindness..." Not, "With your great wisdom..." No! Not, "You know so much, you are all-knowing. Your wisdom, your knowledge..."

No, that was not the point - "With your loving kindness..."

Buddha says that when one becomes enlightened, he has two things in him - they flower simultaneously. One is karuna - kindness, loving kindness - the other is wisdom, prajna: these two things flower in him. So if you are a seeker after knowledge, he will talk to you through his wisdom, but that is secondary. But if you are a seeker of being, he will talk to you through his loving kindness - through his karuna. Wisdom can miss the target, but karuna never misses, loving kindness never misses.

When this man said, "Without words and without no-words, will you tell me the truth?" he was saying, "I am not here to know more. I have already done too much of that; I have gathered much knowledge but it never gives you freedom. Rather, on the contrary, it becomes an imprisonment. Now I am here to know something about being, to be myself. I want the taste not the words. I want to enter."

Buddha remained silent, looked from his whole being at the man with a deep-flowing love and kindness. Whenever you look towards somebody with deep love something flows from you to the other person, just like a river flows to the ocean. But the other person needs to be just like a valley, only then it can flow; otherwise it cannot flow.

Just the other day somebody asked me, "I have come to see you; you are sitting on the chair and I am sitting down. Why? Why not another chair for me?"

I said, "It is possible and I am not losing anything in it. You can have an even taller chair than me, or you can just go on the roof and sit there; but I am not losing anything. You will lose much because it is simply symbolic."

You have to be a valley, only then the river can flow, just like the water flows towards the valley. You have to be a valley - a deep humbleness, a receptivity, a womb - so that you can receive.

This man remained silent before Buddha - humble, ready to receive. And Buddha looked at him with a deep love, infinite love, he flowed into him... he got the taste. He lived Buddha for a moment. He had the glimpse, as if for a single moment the darkness disappeared and there was lightning. For a single moment, when Buddha's being touched this man, there was lightning - everything changed.

He bowed down in deep gratitude and said, "With your loving kindness, I have cleared away my delusions..." Delusions cannot be cleared away through theories. No philosophy can help. Delusions are very real; they need something more real than they are, only then can they be dispelled.

If you are in the delusion of sex, no theories will be of any help. Only a love flowing towards you will dispel them, because love is a higher reality than sex. If you are in delusions about the world, only a buddha can dispel them. If he flows in you, for that moment there is no world. For that moment only Buddha existed, there was no world. For that moment, even the seeker was not there. He said:

"I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path."

After the philosopher had gone Ananda asked Buddha...

He must have been puzzled, "What is happening?" Buddha has not said anything. If he had, Ananda would have recorded it. If I keep silence, this tape recorder will miss. The tape recorder, if it can ask, will ask, "What happened?" - because the tape recorder can only record the visible, the sound, the physical. The spiritual is completely beyond it.

Ananda was deeply puzzled - "What is happening?" He must have been ready: "This man has raised a great question. Now what is Buddha going to say?" And then Buddha said nothing. Not only that - it happened many times that Buddha would not say anything, that was not new - but this man bowed down as if he had received something. And he said, "I have entered the true path." And he said, "Through your loving kindness, all my delusions are cleared away."

Ananda was present and he missed. How will you be able to understand what happened? Why had Ananda missed? He was not humble; that remained the whole problem for him. He was a cousin-brother of Buddha, an elder cousin-brother - that created the whole trouble. He always deep down believed that he was older than Buddha - and he knows this man from his very childhood: "He may have become wise in some ways, he may be a little further ahead than me, but I am his elder brother." That continued in his unconscious, created the barrier.

It is very difficult... if a Jesus is born to your family, it is very difficult for the mother, for the father, for the brothers, sisters, for the family, for the town, to recognize him. Impossible! - because how can you believe that a miracle can happen in your family? How can you believe that a miracle has happened to this person, and has not happened to you? No, it is impossible. You know yourself well, you know others also. Then either this man is deceiving, or something of minor importance has happened which can happen to you also - a little effort is needed, no other problem is there.

This remained the barrier, and Ananda remained blind. He asked after the philosopher had gone what the philosopher had attained, "Because I don't see anything being communicated. I don't see anything happening, and this man says he has attained the path, he has entered. What has happened?"

THE BUDDHA REPLIED - and the reply is beautiful. He said, "A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip."

There are three types of horses - all the three types are here! First type: unless you beat him, he will not budge. You beat him and he will somehow carry the burden a little. You stop beating and he stops. You have to be constantly on him, beating, whipping - only then a little progress is made.

Then there is another type of horse: so much beating is not needed. Just once you threaten him or you are going to beat him, and he will move.

And then there is a third type of horse, the best. Just the shadow of the whip, not even the whip, just the shadow of the whip - you need not even raise the whip, just the possibility, and he will run. This third type of horse attains enlightenment, in a single moment.

Buddha did nothing. He neither whipped this man, nor threatened him with hell and heaven. He didn't even say anything, he remained silent. And in this silence the shadow was seen. It was enough.

It happened once: Three ministers of Akbar, the great Moghul, did something wrong. It was a crime, so he asked the one, "What should I do? What punishment?"

The man said, "It is enough that you asked." He went home and committed suicide. The second man was sent to the jail for two years, and the third man was sent to the gallows.

Other ministers became very puzzled because the crime was the same; they were all partners in one crime and all three had confessed. So they asked, "What type of justice is this, that one man is not even told anything, he is left to go home? Another has been sentenced for two years, and the third to the gallows?"

Akbar said, "They are three different types of horses. For the first, just the shadow of the whip was enough. I asked him what type of punishment he would like, and he said this is enough. He went home, committed suicide. This was too much! Enough punishment had been given.

"The second man has been sent to jail for two years because less than that won't do. Now he is continuously thinking: 'It was bad that I did it, and as soon as I am out of the jail I will do some good deeds so the balance is regained.' He is not feeling any guilt, just missed, and he will regain. He is thinking and planning how to come out and how....

"The third man - even life imprisonment would not be enough, because he doesn't feel at all that any crime has been done. Rather, on the contrary, he thinks it was because he was not clever enough, that's why he has been caught. Next time he will be more clever, he will learn the secrets, he will learn the tricks - more and better - that's all. He feels no guilt. No punishment can help this man, this man has to be removed from society. And the first man has removed himself because this was too much."

Said Buddha: "A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip."

If you are understanding, the shadow is enough; no hell is needed for you. Those are created for the third type of horse: those who will not listen. No heaven is needed for you, for your greed and gratification; life is enough if you understand.

And if you feel, you will start changing through your feeling. A mutation happens if you become more and more sensitive towards life. The very sensitivity gives you awareness, alertness. Otherwise, even a Buddha cannot help.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin fingered a banker who was coming out of his office and said, "What about two annas for a cup of coffee?"

The Mulla was looking so distraught, so sad, that the man felt for him, and he said, "Here is one rupee. Take it and have eight cups of coffee." So Mulla went.

Next day he was again there on the steps of the office, and as the banker came out, he punched his face, on the nose.

The man said, "Hey, what are you doing? And this is after I gave you one rupee just yesterday?

What type of thankfulness is this?"

Mulla said, "You and your lousy eight cups of coffee." And he punched him again on his nose and said, "They kept me awake the whole night!"

Nobody has said to him, "Go and take eight cups of coffee right now!" Don't take even a buddha in too much of a dose, it will keep you awake the whole night - and you may like to punch my nose!

Be understanding, sensitive. Move according to your understanding, your possibility, your capacity.

Look always at the shadow of the whip, and move according to the shadow. Be more alert, more and more alert, otherwise even religion can be poison; otherwise you can fall into hell because of a buddha.

Buddha is not the certainty, he is not the guarantee. Finally your own awareness... If you are aware, by and by, you will see that less and less thoughts come to the mind. The old pail breaks. The water flows out. It makes no reflection of the moon, and only when the reflection is gone can you look at the sky, at the real moon. No water, no moon.

Enough for today.

THIENOSHO

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No Water No Moon

Saturday, July 23, 2016

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